50 years ago

I share with you today a photo from 50 years ago. In the Major Seminary, we had just finished our first year in 1971, and we spent the summer months helping in our respective parishes, myself at St Julian's parish. We were 19 seminarians studying philosophy and theology while living as a community in the seminary at Floriana, presently used as the Archdiocesan Chancery. 14 of us were eventually ordained on June 19, 1977. This is one of our informal photos as a group, probably around Christmas time. You can see me standing in the back, the third from the left, while sitting right in front of me is Fr Tancred Sultana who just passed away 3 weeks ago while helping in a parish in Gibraltar. Sitting in the front on the far right is Fr Teddy Cumbo who passed away 3 years ago. Half a century has gone by, and we continue to serve in various parishes and communities, as we pray for vocations, since presently there may be only 8 seminarians studying. Back in 1971, we were over 80 seminarians all living together, spread out in three different classes. Another 17 new seminarians would join us in 1972. 18 would be ordained as priests in 1972, close to 50 were ordained in 1974 and 14 of us were ordained in 1977.